To Blog or Not to Blog

Good morning!

To blog or not to blog, that is the question.  Is the blog a "journal"?  I have not thought so because it has always been impossible for me to keep a journal or diary. And I am clipping along quite nicely on this blog.

Yet, yesterday, talking to sister no. 5, it was suggested to me that in blogging I am letting it all hang out. Yes, I am doing that, kind of, but let it be understood that I am censoring all the way: snipping and turning and choosing as best I can on the run. So it is off the top of my head--while not being of the gut. Journaling is belly-button activity, to me, while writing for others (which is what my blog is for me) (though very dang few are reading it, apparently) is an Artistic Endeavor. I do tell all (up to a point) but I do hope that you can see in each effort an attempt to pull it all together, to bring it to a conclusion that lifts it a fraction higher. That is what I try to do.

AS Byatt in Possession, her awkwardly titled novel, says: If you want to write, don't journal. If you want to write, write. Try to use and practice your craft every time you sit down to it. (That 's paraphrased of course.)  I am writing this blog for my grandchildren, who may never read it, that they may know me as I knew my American grandmother.  So in a way it's just from the gut and personal. But I do try to shape each posting as I can, on the fly and in a hurry as it is.

I am thankful to AS Byatt for exposing to me that great difference in writing for the heck of it and writing literarily and artistically.  Perhaps I should go back to A Poem a Day, which I used to try to do before I figured out how to get on the blog. I'll think about it.  For the present, it's Wednesday, and you know what that means. Patricia is coming, and that means music, and lunch. "Lunch will be a salad." Is that journaling or literature?  "Lunch will be a crunchy cold green salad of romaine lettuce with field greens mixed in and cold asparagus  laid over the top, with hot toasty French bread on the side." How about that one? YAZZYBEL